Building on Services' Characteristics to Develop Successful Services Brands

Little has been published about services brands, even though we are in a services economy. The literature shows services have unique characteristics, but their implications for brand building have not been explored. To understand how to develop and sustain successful services brands with their unique characteristics, we undertook in depth interviews with 28 leading brand consultants. They have brand categorisations, which provide rich inspirations for services brand strategies. Ways of circumventing the problems of intangibility and heterogeneous quality were elicited and opportunities for relationship building were identified. Services branding, unlike product branding, is more about internal consistency, places more emphasis on managing the total services brand experience and is more about social processes. It stresses the need for accepting the brand inside and outside the organisation.